From House Republicans Today (I added emphasis to the bit about expanding all sorts of energy – which Nancy Pelosi basically lied about, claiming the Republicans weren’t doing in the last post):

An Open Letter to Speaker Pelosi

On Friday August 1, 2008, at 11:23 a.m., your Democrat majority in the House of Representatives adjourned the House for five full weeks.

House Republicans believe that Congress should not go on vacation until we take action to lower gas and energy prices for struggling American families.

For the last two months we and our House Republican colleagues have used every tool at our disposal to try and get you and your Democrat majority to vote on legislation to lower gas and energy prices by expanding environmentally sound domestic production of oil and natural gas, improving energy efficiency, and encouraging the development of alternative energy technologies.

Many of the proposals we have asked you and your Democrat majority to allow us to vote on are bipartisan proposals that we believe would enjoy the support of a majority of the Members of the Congress. Yet because you and your Democrat Leadership personally oppose these proposals, you are not allowing them to come up for a vote. This past Sunday, you even told George Stephanopoulos that you will never allow this vote to occur ….

In protest of you and your Democrat majority not allowing an up or down vote on producing more American energy, we and our House Republican colleagues were prepared to take to the floor on Friday, August 1, 2008, and speak to the nation. Rather than allowing that to happen you and your Democrat majority adjourned the House, turned off the television cameras, shut off the microphones and turned out the lights. Nearly 50 House Republicans remained on the floor of the House in defiance speaking to those citizens gathered in the galleries and to the media.

Today we have again returned to the Capitol to continue speaking to the thousands of Americans from all across our country who are visiting the Capitol. We would have preferred if instead we were joined by our colleagues to have a true debate on this issue that ended in an up or down vote.

We think it is unconscionable that Congress has gone on vacation before we have addressed the high gas prices that are crippling our economy and hurting millions of families. We are asking that you reconvene the House from your five-week vacation and schedule a vote on legislation to increase American energy production. Let us be clear, we are not asking for a guaranteed outcome, just the chance to vote.

With fewer than 20 legislative days before the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1, the entire appropriations process has largely ground to a halt because of the ham-handed fighting that followed Republican attempts to lift the moratorium on offshore oil and gas exploration. And after promising fairness and open debate, Pelosi has resorted to hard-nosed parliamentary devices that effectively bar any chance for Republicans to offer policy alternatives.

“I’m trying to save the planet; I’m trying to save the planet,” she says impatiently when questioned. “I will not have this debate trivialized by their excuse for their failed policy.”

We need oil to get to the next cleaner and better energy source – plain and simple. Pelosi has completely bought the man caused global warming stuff though – so there is no longer any reasoning with her. She’s ‘trying to save the planet.’ If that’s true – why doesn’t she call for some nation wide debates on climate science? I think that would be very interesting because the discussion might actually involve science, and get a lot of people to really think about energy solutions. But this isn’t going to happen – because as Al Gore has stated – the ‘debate is closed.’

Why can’t we be reasonable about this issue? Because the hard left environmental activists have a huge hold on the democratic party. It’s been this way ever since the 60’s when environmental groups overreacted to the environmental threat of DDT. The environmental groups won and gained a huge amount of leverage in the political sphere. This led to heavy restrictions on the use and production of the chemical (mostly based on questionable science)- which indirectly resulted in the deaths of millions (mostly women and children) in Africa to malaria.

In the early 1960s, several developing countries had nearly wiped out malaria. After they stopped using DDT, malaria came raging back and other control methods have had only modest success.

Which is why Arata Kochi, head of the WHO’s antimalaria campaign, has made the move to bring back DDT. His major effort at a news conference Friday in Washington, D.C., was not so much to announce the change, but to deflect potential opposition from environmental groups.

“We are asking these environmental groups to join the fight to save the lives of babies in Africa,” Kochi said. “This is our call to them.”

The fundamental failing of many environmental campaigns is the cost that it has on poor people. With the fervor over DDT – it was the destitute in Africa that suffered. The hype over biofuels also effected these people by driving up prices of corn around the world. They couldn’t afford to eat, so we could feel better about fueling our cars.

It’s the same story with Pelosi blocking oil expansion. This will drive up world oil prices. Again – who will this effect the most? The poor. For middle class folks, $4.00 gas (and it will go up from here) is annoying – but for the poor, it’s devastating. I guess if you are trying to ‘save the planet’ then the poor should just learn to deal with it…

It’s time we came up with reasonable solutions to energy needs, and move away from the hysteric apocalyptic ‘save the planet’ rhetoric. We can, and should do this in an environmentally responsible way. And we can do it without decimating the poor.

With skyrocketing gas prices, it is clear that the American people can no longer afford the Republican Rubber Stamp Congress and its failure to stand up to Republican big oil and gas company cronies.

[…]

Democrats have a commonsense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices by cracking down on price gouging, rolling back the billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, tax breaks and royalty relief given to big oil and gas companies, and increasing production of alternative fuels.”

Make oil companies drill where it wouldn’t be cost effective. (Maybe Baskin-Robbins should open an ice cream parlor in Antarctica while we’re at it.)

It would take 10 years for the price to reflect any change, if the government allowed oil companies to drill today. (Wrong. This is basic economics (see chart below): Investors will immediately see the potential that more oil will be added to the world supply and reinvest so they won’t get hosed – this will cause costs to go down. Plus, as Mark points out – it won’t take ten years. If there is money to be made – they’ll get the rigs in place ASAP.)

The high price of oil is only because we have to “two oil men,” (Bush & Cheney) in the Whitehouse. (Yeah, and they’re forcing the price higher right at the end of their term in office for what…so they can have even crappier approval ratings? Plus, doesn’t this sound a little conspiratorial? Where’s the evidence?)

Meanwhile – we should be investing in alternatives like solar and wind. How exactly are solar and wind energy going to fuel the millions of trucks, trains, planes, and ships that are distributing food and goods around the country and the world?

The other solution Pelosi has put forth is to wait for the magical clean energy solution to come along. Ok, I support that – except again, what are we going to power our distribution and transportation networks on until then…Hope?

We need a realistic solution for the energy situation now. Challenge American ingenuity to come up with a clean solution for the future — but if the oil companies know where the oil is, and can drill in a relatively environmentally safe way, why not let them?

“Well, the purpose of the surge was to provide a secure space, a time for the political change to occur to accomplish the reconciliation. That didn’t happen. Whatever the military success, and progress that may have been made, the surge didn’t accomplish its goal. And some of the success of the surge is that the goodwill of the Iranians-they decided in Basra when the fighting would end, theynegotiated that cessation of hostilities-the Iranians.”

I’m sorry – I usually don’t resort to flat out insults, but…What a freaking clueless idiot!

This ludicruis comment is so typical of the know-nothing douchenozzels in Washington. It even earned Nancy the coveted flaming skull over at Ace of Spades (I had to transplant and quote):

Having blurted out, probably accidentally, that the surge was in fact successful, Granny Rictus McBotoxImplants now scrambles to credit the enemy nation murdering our troops with the victory our troops accomplished through blood, sweat, tears, and more blood.

It’s not our troops. It’s not Petraeus’ leadership. It’s not the Iraqis turning on the Al Qaeda murderers. No — it’s Iran’s goodwill.

Here at wtc she gets the coveted Jar-Jar Award:

I have created a helpful “who to trust” tutorial below for those who haven’t been following the war so far: